Monday, March 24, 2014

Movie Adaptation Review: Divergent

You're different. You don't fit into a category. They can't control you. They call it Divergent. You can't let them find out about you.

YAYY Divergent~! I was really excited about this movie, and I don't even know the premiere date - until suddenly I started seeing people updated about watching it. So I convinced my family to watch it with me. The movie is about 2 hours 15 mins long - a pretty standard duration for a movie, but it certainly covered the important details of the book quite well. I have to say I am quite satisfied with the movie adaptation, and thank GOD it has an adequate amount of romance. So here's a non-spoiling, just-an-opinion review by me about the movie adaptation for Divergent.

The movie started with the introduction of the city - it tells us that it's Chicago, with all the same structures and buildings, but they're wrecked. And of course, the factions: Erudite, Amity, Candor, Abnegation, and Dautless. I think the movie explained this part extremely well, especially with each factions' costumes, you can really differentiate which faction a person belongs to. It's fairly easy to understand, especially for the people who doesn't read the book (like my parents). Then the story continues to the aptitude test and Choosing Day for Beatrice and Caleb, and they betrayed their faction, Abnegation, by choosing a different faction. Beatrice chose Dauntless which she admired since she was a kid, and Caleb chose Erudite. The difference between the book is Jeanine Matthews character already showed up since the beginning; and the whole time I looked at her face on screen I was thinking 'She's going to do something real bad......'. Oh the perks of reading the book beforehand.

Jeanine Matthews: "The system removes the threat of anyone exercising their independent will. Divergents threaten that system. It won't be safe until they're removed."

The real excitement starts when Beatrice (or Tris) entered Dauntless and experience all the madness in that faction - including jumping off a train and jumped off the building to get into the Dauntless headquarter. At this point, she already knew about her being Divergent but still confused as to what it means. The audience gets to see what it takes to be a Dauntless; you have to be extremely brave and courageous - a person who never gives up. But then something really big happened; and her Divergence might be able to save her family. I'll stop at that to avoid spoilers. You can read my book review for more details, or you might have already read the book as well ;) But this movie did an extremely good job in covering the plot of the book.

Of course, every movie adaptation always leave out several scenes from the book because of movie duration. But thankfully, the movie only left out several details that aren't that important (including the butter knife scene, which I was quite expecting to see, actually. ㅋㅋ). The main story is told in a sequential way and is easy to understand. Most of the time, the characters emphasized on small things (like when Tris saw the Erudites she said "Erudites" out loud) so the audience wouldn't be confused or have to think it all by themselves - which is a good thing. There are also some changes in several scenes, but I don't think it's really that significant, so I was fine with it. Though there's a scene that felt kind of awkward, but I won't discuss it here to avoid any spoilers.

My favorite scenes! One of them has to be when Tris went under the fear landscape for her final test, and Four showed up kissing her. It must be totally embarrassing to show that she feared Four wanting to have sex, in front of all those people - including Jeanine Matthews ㅋㅋㅋ There are some twists in the movie, which made me excited even though I read the book and know most of what will happen in the movie. I also loved the part when Four is taking Tris into his fear landscape; it totally showed at that point, he decided to open himself up and let Tris into his life.

"Faction before blood, yeah?"

As for the characters, Shailene Woodley and Theo James both did a perfect job on being Tris and Four. I was afraid that Four's character in the movie wouldn't be as cold as he was in the book, but yeah he's real cold. Absolutely like what I imagined when I read the book. We can also see how Tris changed from her 'stiff-Abnegation'-self into a true-courageous-Dauntless. The romance also feels natural and not exaggerated (thankfully). Unfortunately, the other characters aren't that memorable. I even had difficulties differentiating Will, Al, and Peter - because I don't know why but they look kind of similar to me. Is it just my eyes? Peter's character is not as hateful as he was in the book - probably because he doesn't show up that much. Kate Winslet is also great as Jeanine Matthews - definitely showed that cocky-smart-ass personality. Looking forward to more of her in the next movie!

I have to say this again, but I'm so happy the movie turned out as I hoped it to be. The movie adaptation really do justice to the amazing book, and I hope they will keep this quality up until the last movie. The action sequence is well-executed and intense, the storyline is told in a way that's easy to understand - even for those who doesn't read the book, and I just love Four and Tris. Though of course the emotional part of the movie (deaths) wasn't delivered as well as it was in the book, probably because the lack of time. And because Divergent is frequently compared to The Hunger Games (idk why), I have to say that Divergent did a better job in terms of translating the book into movie. But nevertheless I still love both, of course. Can't deny that. The continuation of this movie, Insurgent, is set to premiere in 2015. Looking forward to many more goodness in the next movie!

3 comments:

Nice movie review Stefanie :)Divergent have huge revenue, was in the #1 Box Office.IMO, so far this is the #2 Best Film Adaptation (since Harry Potter series). My favorite is Ender's Game.we'll wait for the maze runner.

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“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”― Stephen King